Mahjong Resources For Otakon 2022 Mahjong Club Panel

Hello mahjongs! If you’re here following the Mahjong Club panel at Otakon 2022, you’re here for further reading and instruction on Japanese riichi mahjong.

If you’re a regular reader of the newsletter, hey, you might learn something too.

Platforms: It’s Mahjong Soul again

We pushed you towards Soul despite its gacha (and I’m pretty anti-gacha) because it truly has everything for the beginner in one place, from tutorial to CPU matches. Ten years ago, English-speaking players would have killed for something like it.

When you’re just learning the basic rules you might want to play against computer dummies. Well, Soul does that too: go into Friendly Match, start a room, and pick “Add AI”.

Tenhou is a great no-frills platform with the strongest competition online. If you get very serious about improving at mahjong, start studying and start playing here. However, I can say from experience that continued exposure to playing endless ranked matches in the void can burn you out pretty hard. I think the “softer” platforms are some of the best things that have happened to the game.

I play on Sega MJ but unless you’re a Sega fanatic like me, you probably don’t need to go through all the trouble involved in playing there from outside Japan. Sega fanatics: It’s AM2 mahjong.

On consoles, as mentioned before, you want to check out Clubhouse Games on the Switch. In addition to being one of the best bang-for-buck deals on the console, has a strong riichi tutorial.

While they possess a fascinating history, Japanese strip mahjong arcade games will probably not help your tile game beyond the absolute basics.

Beginner: Riichi Book I

Let’s get right down to it: once you’ve got a solid grip on the rules of riichi and you want to improve your game, proceed directly to Daina Chiba’s Riichi Book I. Thorough and clearly written, RB1 is unquestionably the best beginner-intermediate riichi book available in English. If I didn’t say this in the panel, it’s because I forgot.

Intermediate to Advanced: Google It

Very little advanced strategy texts are out there in English; mostly Japanese books translated by players. I will suggest Makoto Fukuchi and G Uzaku and leave the rest to you.

You Might Even Have Local Players

You’d think that you’re the only person you know playing Japanese mahjong, but it’s been a while since its popularity began to climb in the States. It’s actually gotten pretty wide, and there might just be people around you playing riichi! I recommend just searching for riichi groups in your area or region.

I am currently playing with Riichi Nomi NYC. I can vouch for the club as very welcoming and friendly, with lots of strong competition. Avoid the other NYC club.

Mahjong Media

Something we realized putting together this panel is that aside from continuing seasons of Saki, there hasn’t been any more mahjong anime than there was when we did this panel ten years ago.

This is a super-niche genre so don’t expect official English versions of anything. That being said…

As alluded in the panel, both Carl and I are big fans of the works of Katayama Masayuki, mahjong pro and manga artist. Obaka Miiko is about the hot-and-cold relationship between a depressed, divorced top mahjong pro and an airheaded beginner pro. In between their back-and-forth there’s a lot of strong advice aimed directly at beginners like Miiko.

I recommend the Kirinji series by Tsukawaki Nagahisa. It’s effectively sports shonen manga, about an online pro who ruined his life and lost his family playing online mahjong (are these series trying to tell people something?) and must redeem himself by dominating Japan’s mahjong parlor gambling scene. This series has wild characters but a firmly realistic view on the game, with many different types of players and styles.

Thanks for coming to the panel!

Though I’m writing this in the past. I’m sure future Dave and Carl were great. Visit their websites and support their efforts. Speaking of…